State Approves $6.6M In Funding For Danbury Traffic System Upgrades

DANBURY, CT — The traffic lights in the city may be getting an upgrade.

The Western Connecticut Council of Governments has voted to advance a proposal of $6,666,000 in Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program funding to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to begin a Fiber Optic Trunk Cable Project, Mayor Dean Esposito announced Monday.

That work would enable Danbury to implement new traffic control technologies. These include adaptive traffic signals to adjust the timing of a green signal to match current traffic conditions, according to a news release from the Mayor's Office.

LOTCIP provides state funds to urbanized area municipal governments in lieu of federal funds otherwise available through federal transportation legislation.

"I want to thank WestCOG for the unanimous vote on this funding to help ease our traffic burden throughout the City with the modernization of our system. Since day one, my administration has been focused on improving Danbury’s infrastructure. We’ve stuck to that promise, as this funding will allow us to have a reliable and robust communications backbone to monitor and control all traffic signals in the City of Danbury," Esposito said.

The proposed new fiber optic network will accommodate Danbury’s needs for the next thirty years, according to Esposito, and the funding allocation is the largest of its kind from WestCOG in the history of the organization.